


The Blade Commander Gnov Caught

by Callaeidae3



Series: KWmonth (Keithtober x Whumptober) [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hostage Situations, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Missions Gone Wrong, kwmonth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-29 07:10:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16259216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: KWmonth prompts: Kral Zera/Hostage/Cryopods/Last WordsAxca doesn't save Keith from Commander Gnov at the Kral Zera. Keith is taken prisoner and the Blades leave without him.*Title changed from 'Knowledge or Death'





	1. Kral Zera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had Axca not stepped in...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second fic that came out of writing prompts for KWmonth (Keithtober x Whumptober)!

His heart lurches as his sword slips from his grasp.

_Quiznak._

Keith rolls across the stone staircase. He pulls himself upright but his momentum keeps carrying him backwards. When at last he stops, he propels himself forward with a flick of the ankle and lunges for his blade.

He’s not quick enough. Commander Gnov steps on the blade and grins. Keith tries to yank it out from under foot, but it’s stuck and she’s raising her sword to strike him.

He throws himself sideways, out of the way but tumbling down the staircase.

Lotor and Sendak are still engaged in a scrap of their own. Keith doesn’t have time to see who’s winning, though, because he’s already losing. Gnov is now between him and his sword, hurtling down the steps toward him, which means he’s basically bringing his fists to a knife fight.

_This isn’t going to end well._

Keith clambers to his feet, a little sore from landing on stone over and over. Gnov comes at him.

Unfortunately she’s not so foolish as to try to knock him off his feet, so even when Keith dodges a swipe of her sword, she’s not put off-balance. She spins on one foot, striking sideways. Keith evades. She swings the blade down in a viscous arc. He sidesteps.

Then his foot slips and he’s off balance as well as being weapon-less and on the defensive.

The next blow hits.

Gnov rams the hilt of her sword into the side of his neck. Keith’s shout is cut short as he crashes into the staircase. Gnov is on him in an instant.

Keith’s expecting a killing blow but instead he gets a knee between his shoulder blades. Before he can try to roll out from under her, the Commander grabs a wrist and yanks his arm up behind his back. She slashes at the material of his Blade uniform hood, nicking the back of his neck in the process, and the next thing he knows, she’s pulling his other arm up and securing his hands behind back.

Keith’s heart beats so loud and fast and hard that he finds it hard to breathe. If he couldn’t move before, he can hardly move now and any attempt at landing a kick is useless. At first he doesn’t understand what’s happening, why she’s binding his wrists so tightly, but then he remembers what uniform he’s wearing and who he’s affiliated to and who she is.

_She wants me alive for interrogation._

Gnov grabs him by the shredded remains of his hood, hefts him up and flings him over her shoulder.

There’s no telling what she’ll do to him. There’s no way Keith’s going to tell her anything. She’ll have to kill him first. But if she’s been in Zarkon’s inner circle of Commanders for a long time, she probably has a reasonable connection to Haggar. If he’s handed over to  _her_ , to Zarkon’s witch, then it doesn’t matter if he wants to tell them stuff or not – they’ll force it out of him by extracting his memories or something like they did to Shiro.

_Not happening!_

Keith gives it everything he’s got. He kicks, he struggles, he screams all the profanities he knows in a multitude of Earth languages. But all it does is make Gnov irritated and slow her down.

After less than fifteen seconds, she decides she’s had enough. She stops, leans forward and slams him down on the stone. Keith’s vision blacks out. Gnov tears one last strip of material from his hood and binds his ankles with it.

_No, no, no! Quiznak!_

Keith screeches at her, earning him an elbow to the stomach after which he finds he doesn’t have enough breath to yell. She picks him up again and proceeds to carry him off towards wherever he presumes she’s parked her ship.

But she made a mistake: she left his blade on the staircase. The luxite metal just so happens to reflect the moonlight extremely well and it catches the eye of the Red Voltron Lion and her paladin.

They’re halfway down the mountainside, Keith still struggling but with no effect, when the Red Lion blasts Gnov’s ship and sets down in front of it. Gnov gasps, arm around Keith’s torso tightening. She tries to run.

“You’re not taking him anywhere!”

Lance leaps from the Red Lion’s mouth, bayard raised. Dirt erupts at Gnov’s feet. As she turns around to gap it, Keith gets a glimpse of Lance’s face.

He’s furious.

The look on his face is almost feral. Protective. Like a lion defending one of its pride.

Gnov plus sword versus angry Red Paladin plus rifle equals a Commander who knows a fight she’s not going to win. She dumps Keith on the ground and gaps it.

Lance is at his side in an instant. “Keith! What the heck are you doing  _here?”_

Two skilled precision shots and Keith’s hands and feet are free. He grunts, letting Lance help him to his feet.

“What does it look like?” he mutters.

“Causing chaos? Getting yourself captured?”

Keith glares at him. “No need to rub it in.”

Lance winces. “Sorry. But seriously, dude – are you okay?”

“Yeah, I will now. Thanks...for saving me just now. I-I was…”

Lance pats him on the shoulder with a small smile. “It’s okay. I’d be pretty scared, too. She looked familiar. What was that Commander’s name?”

“Kolivan said it was Commander Gnov, but I’m not entirely sure. I just remember him showing us some pictures and she happened to be in one of them.”

“Oh, Lotor was talking to us about a few of them, too. He said she was one of Zarkon’s most trusted advisors. It sounds like you sure don’t want to mess around with her.”

Keith’s heart is still pounding. The adrenaline is starting to wear off now, leaving his muscles feeling jelly and his knees weak. It was a close call – too close a call. Five more minutes and he would’ve been on his way to…

The blood drains from his face and his stomach churns. Keith swallows, raises his chin to try keep it down. Bile rises in his throat.

“Woah,  _Keith - !”_

He doubles over and throws up. He doesn’t even realise he’s trembling until Lance is lowering him to his knees with his arms around him keeping him steady.

It was never this bad when Zarkon nearly killed him.

After the Trials, after  _Naxzela…_

Keith’s not afraid of dying. He’s not scared of risky infiltration missions or dangerous flying or debatable battle tactics. He’s always relied on his instincts, on his ability to get through situations when his fight-or-flight mechanism takes over, so none of those things are very daunting.

But the thought of being trapped, where all his fighting ability is rendered useless…

Keith throws up again. The Red Lion stands guard.                                                                          

The thought of being tied down, restrained, locked up,  _tortured_ without any ability to fight back…

“Hey, why don’t you come back to the Castle with me?” Lance says, breaking through Keith’s visualising. “You can chill with us for a bit, then Allura can open up a wormhole and I can take you back to base in Red. How does that sound?”

Keith manages a weak nod.

Ilun and Vrek have probably already left. They wouldn’t wait around for him. Keith’s the one who screwed up the mission, anyway. He made the choice to stay behind and try to stop the bombs.

_‘Then you’ll die with them.’_

Lance is quiet with concern as he guides him into Red. Keith’s heart swells as Red’s familiarity washes over him, but it doesn’t do anything to help with the dread pooling in his stomach.

No one would’ve come after him. Like old times. People never –

But Lance came for him, didn’t he? How many times has Red saved his life doing the same?

Being back at the Castle is a strange mix of planning with Lotor and everyone concerned for Keith. Keith doesn’t know where he fits, but there’s an ache in heart that tells him it’s not here.

Maybe someday he’ll come back, but right now there’s no place for him here. At least, not for the time being.

For now, he belongs with the Blades.

 

 


	2. Hostage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Had Lance not been there...

Gnov goes straight to the bridge. It’s like she’s forgotten about the Blade she captured, the one who still won’t give up trying to wrestle himself free off her shoulder. Keith supposes this is better that being thrown in a dark prison cell, but the fact that he’s been brought to the bridge is much worse of a concern.

The crew await orders. The Commander leans to the side to let Keith drop off her shoulder, simultaneously barking at the crew. His arms jerk the bindings on his wrists. He lands as he falls.

The ship gets itself airborne and they leave the Kral Zera. Even from his position on the floor, Keith can see the flashes of colour down below and it sends a wave of homesickness and resignation through him.

Voltron.

They would’ve come after him. The moment they saw him being carried off by the Commander, they’d have been after him. But they’re not coming. They probably aren’t even aware he was at the Kral Zera, not unless Lotor tells them afterwards.

And Ilun and Vrek will have to tell Kolivan how badly he screwed up, how didn’t make it back to the rendezvous point in time so they left.

Keith tries not to think too hard. Being left behind is one thing. Where he’s being taken to is another.

While Gnov is busy taking the fleet out of range of fire, he keeps up his attempts to get free. It’s not going very well. Since she cut strips from the material of his hood to use, he can’t tear it – the Blade uniform isn’t made to be that weak. She’s tied his wrists more than she has his ankles, but she’s fixed them so tight that there really isn’t any way he can get free by himself. That’s obviously the idea, but it’s frustrating to say the least.

Keith’s left relatively unharmed until, about thirty minutes after the ship took off, Gnov grabs his arm and hefts him up off the floor. His ankles bound, there’s no way for him to get much of a balance – Gnov grasps the back of his neck in the other hand and slams his forehead into the console.

 

People speaking. Keith’s forehead itches with dried blood.

He opens his eyes, one eye only half opening due to the blood running down the right side of his face, and tries to see who’s talking. Commander Gnov is, obviously, but Keith has no idea what she’s saying; his translator is broken and she speaks in a different dialect to Kolivan.

But the words coming from the video feed are ones he knows like his mother tongue…

Keith inhales sharply. That’s because it is.

Shiro, Allura and Coran are standing on the bridge of the Castle. Shiro’s the one doing the talking. He argues back and forth with Gnov, presumably negotiating. Keith struggles to understand what they’re talking about so much, then it dawns on him that he’s in the background of the video – that they can  _see_ him.

Bruised and with blood covering half his face.

 _Quiznak._ That means he’s being used as a hostage.

Two foot soldiers are holding him upright, an arm locked around each of his. He doesn’t know what he looks like, but he knows what he feels like.

Gnov says something that sounds like an ultimatum.

Shiro and Coran’s expression morphs into something hard and fearful, and Allura looks furious.

Keith swallows, about to tell Voltron not to worry about him when something cold and circular presses against his neck.

It’s a taser.

A scream tears from his throat. The pain cuts him all over.

Gnov says something. Neither Shiro, Allura nor Coran answer.

 He’s shocked again. Twice.

Keith can’t breathe. His muscles spasm, yanking hard against the restraints.

Three times. Voltron still doesn’t answer.

Keith’s unconscious after the fourth.

 

 

The pain is horrendous. He feels like he’s drowning in it. There’s a lot of noise going on around him and it makes his head spin. He’s so sick to the stomach, Keith thinks he senses Red nearby.

 _You’re dreaming,_ he thinks.  _There’s no way…_

The tight pressure on his wrists and ankles vanish. He groans as someone moves his arms, moves him. A muscle in his cheek contracts painfully.

“..ang in the’e, ‘eith. We’re get…you out o’ ‘ere.”

Keith manages to open his eyes a fraction. He sees a blurry image of Lance’s face and a swath of white and yellow colour behind him. Lance pulls an arm over his shoulder and –

The moment his shoulder rubs against the burn on the side of his neck he passes out again.

 

 

It’s cold and it’s blue, but he no longer hurts. There’s a hiss and whoosh and he’s falling, but he falls into warmth and he’s caught by strong arms.

It’s disorientating. Familiar voices. Keith opens his eyes.

Shiro’s holding him upright, but his feet are no longer bound so he can balance on his own two feet…mostly. Behind Shiro are…

“This is the Castle…” he blurts out, confused.

Did he never leave? No, he did – but that was ages ago. Why isn’t he at the Blade of Marmora base? And is that… _Sam Holt,_ and  _Matt_?

Lance has a strange look on his face. “Yeah, man. This is the Castle. You were in bad shape so we took you home for a bit. That alright with you?”

Keith glances from face to face. “What…happened?”

“Don’t you remember? You were captured,” Pidge says. “By Commander Gnov.”

Oh, he remembers. He remembers that very well.

“Do you mean how did you get back here?” Hunk offers.

Keith nods.

“Lotor found your knife on his way to light the Kral Zera,” Allura says. “He showed us when we got back to the Castle – he’s at Central Command now – and said it belonged to you. But you’re always carrying it around with you, even when you’re not on Blade missions, so we knew immediately that something was wrong. We had Pidge monitoring the radio transmissions for anything to do with you…then we got a direct transmission from Commander Gnov herself.”

Keith murmurs weakly, “The video…”

“We were able to track you because of it, though. They – ”

“They underestimated the genius that is my sister,” Matt interrupts, grinning. “She traced the call straight back to its origin. Exactly where you were.”

Lance puts his hands in his pockets with a half-smile. “And then we came and got you.”

Keith stares at them, at the worry and the relief on their faces.  _They came after me._

He doesn’t know what to say, let alone what to think. He’s spent so long in a culture of mission before the individual, where it’s every man for himself and if one falls behind they get left behind. The culture shock coming back here is too overwhelming for Keith to handle.

“I-I need to be alone for a moment,” he says. “I…”

He drops his gaze to the floor and pushes himself away from Shiro. The silence in the room makes him hesitate, but he can’t think of anything to say and so, as quickly as he can, staggers away from the group and heads for the door.

“Keith, wait up!”

Lance appears at his side. He doesn’t block his way, though, so Keith keeps walking.

“We kept your suit,” Lance says. “It’s a little torn up, but…”

“I have a spare.”

“Cool. Here in the Castle?”

“Yeah.”

Lance hums. “Cool, cool. I’ll walk you back to your room – no ‘buts’, it’s post-cryopod buddy system – and then I’ll go and bring you some food, okay? Hunk did some mean as cooking, so you’re definitely going to want to try some.”

Keith doesn’t have the energy to answer. Lance doesn’t seem to mind.

When they get to Keith’s old room, Lance leaves as he said he would to give Keith privacy while he changes out of the cryopod suit. Keith’s movements are stiff and he’s still a little sore – probably from getting tasered four times – but at least he’s fine, so to speak. When he raises hand to the side of his neck and brushes his fingers of the spot where he got zapped, the skin only feels a little raw as though it were scratched a couple of times.

Keith sighs heavily, finishes dressing and sits down on the edge of his bed.

That’s how Lance finds him: spaced out, arms hanging limply at his sides. Keith leans forward to rest his head on his hands, fingers digging into his hair.

“What’s wrong, Keith?”

He mentally shakes his head but it doesn’t happen in reality. Keith closes his eyes, focuses on keeping his breathing under control and his visualising all the worse things that could’ve and would’ve happened out of his mind. He doesn’t want to know what Gnov planned to do with him…but he  _does_  want to know so that he’ll stop imagining all the other possibilities.

“Lance,” he whispers. He hesitates, but then catches sight of his blade on the floor beside the bowl of Hunk’s cooking and it gives him courage. “W-What did…what did Gnov want with me?”

“Hmm? As in why was she trying to make a deal with us?”

“My translator was broken.”

“Well…are you sure you want to hear this? If you don’t remember – sorry, don’t know – wouldn’t it be better – ”

“Just tell me,” Keith grits out.

Lance frowns deeper. “Alright, I will. So Gnov, right? Did Kolivan tell you about her?”

“He did.”

“Right, so you know who she is then. She figured that, since you’re a Blade, you wouldn’t tell her anything even if she tortured you for information.”

“Obviously.”

“Yeah. But she also knows you’re affiliated with Voltron, with us, so she tried using you to get answers from us instead.”

Keith hisses a curse.

“She was going to take you to Haggar next. That was her threat, if we didn’t consent to Gnov’s terms. But we operate on terms of our own. As soon as the video ended, Allura opened up a wormhole for Hunk and I and we went in and got you.”

Keith nods numbly. He wants to say thank you and he knows he should, but the words get stuck in his throat. Thankfully Lance seems to understand that he’s a little bit in shock.

His mind’s still reeling with how much of a close call that all was.

“You going to be alright?” Lance asks.

Keith lifts his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he whispers.

 

 


	3. Cryopods

The moment they leave their Lions, Lance and Hunk open fire. Anything standing between them and Keith gets blasted – sentries, walls, doorways, and a Commander whose earnt the rare rage of Hunk.

Except it’s not Hunk who takes the last shot.

Commander Gnov has an arm locked around Keith’s neck. It’s the only thing keeping him upright. She’s using her hostage as a shield this time, not just a bargaining chip.

With her free arm she presses a gun to his head. “Surrender, or he dies.”

Lance pulls the trigger before Gnov can pull hers. She yelps. The arm around Keith’s neck loosens and the gun drops from her other hand. Keith drops too, on his face.

“Hunk!”

The signal. Hunk whirls around, eyes wild, and barrels into Gnov. Before she even has a chance to trip over Keith’s bound feet, Hunk brings the side of his bayard into her head.

Lance ducks beneath a sentry’s shot and hastily drags Keith out of the way. Gnov falls down beside him. Hunk takes down the last two sentries.

The silence that falls is unnerving. Lance’s heart races as he quickly scans the room, making sure there’s no one about to get the jump on them. Hunk confirms that there isn’t, so with the danger out of the way, Lance turns his attention back to Keith.

Dried blood cakes the right side of his face. The gash on his forehead isn’t bleeding, but it’s accompanied by a nasty bruise and swelling. There’s an angry burn on the side of his neck.

Lance shoots through the bindings on his wrists and ankles. Hunk deactivates his bayard and kneels on the floor beside them.

“Keith,” Hunk says loudly. “Can you hear me?”

Keith twitches. His fingers spasm.

“Lance and I are going to get you out of here now, okay?”

A jerk of the knee.

Lance shuffles around so that he can keep an eye on their exit, then helps Hunk roll him onto his back. Keith groans as they move his arms out of the way. Lance is startled by how tense he is.

“Hang in there, Keith,” he says. “We’re getting you out of here.”

A muscle in Keith’s cheek jumps. Lance slides an arm beneath his shoulders and lifts him up. As he goes to sling Keith’s arm over his own shoulders, Keith’s eyes open a fraction, but then his breath hitches and he fades again.

Lance’s stomach churns. He bites back a swearword and saves his breath for hauling an unconscious Keith off the ground.

“Actually, Hunk, can you take him? I’ll watch your back.”

Hunk gives him the thumbs up. “Sure thing, man.”

The run back is fairly unhindered. They meet three sentries near their exit point, but Lance takes them down before they can shoot and Hunk continues on past them.

When their Lions, Hunk piggybacks Keith into Red then darts back out into the enemy ship on his way to Yellow.

“Don’t wait for me,” Hunk yells. “Just get him back to the Castle!”

“I’ll wait till you’re back in Yellow.”

“I’m in now. Go!”

Lance doesn’t hang around. Neither does Red.

Yellow blows up the ship before chasing them through the wormhole.

 

Coran brings a stretcher into the Red Lion’s cockpit, and together he and Lance load Keith onto it. The stretcher is wide enough to accommodate for Keith’s twitching and the way his body seizes up with cramps, so they don’t bother securing him. They just get him to the cryopods.

Everyone’s gathered in the Red Lion’s hangar. Lance doesn’t wait around to read their expressions. He already knows what he’ll find there.

Keith doesn’t return to consciousness. He’s responsive at least, but that’s only when Coran touches the burn on his neck.

Lance and Shiro work at swapping Keith’s torn Marmora suit with a cryopod one. There’s bruises all over Keith’s body, the darkest of them a boot-sized one on his stomach and the one accompanying the cut on his forehead.

Once they’re done, Coran takes a damp cloth and cleans all the dried blood off his face, then he’s in.

Hunk arrives in the room ahead of them, just as the pod closes over.

“He’ll be alright, now. Won’t he?”

Lance takes a deep breath and exhales sharply. “I hope so, but… I don’t know.”

Shiro goes to let Pidge and Allura know they can come in. Coran monitors the first stage of the healing process.

“Come on,” Hunk says. “Let’s get out of our armour. We can come straight back.”

Lance watches Keith a moment longer before he relents.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know.”

The words are almost inaudible, but when Keith whispers them, Lance hears them. It sends a chill down his spine. Automatically he goes to wrap his arms around him, then remembers it’s Keith and remembers the situation they just pulled him from and thinks twice.

“Can I hug you?” he asks quietly.

The sound Keith makes is heart-wrenchingly close to a whimper. He ducks his head in a nod and Lance extends an arm and shifts a little closer. Keith leans into it and lets out a shuddering breath.

They sit in silence for a while, Lance rubbing a hand up and down Keith’s upper arm like he’d do with his niece and nephew back on Earth, and just like them, Keith loses the tension in his shoulders and gradually begins to relax.

“How long…how long was I in the pod for?” he murmurs eventually.

Lance hums. “Sixteen hours. Coran said you’d likely be feeling a little stiff and weak for the next few days but that it should wear off in about a movement.”

Keith closes his eyes and doesn’t say comment.

Before he can drift off to sleep, though, Lance insists he eat. He’s had experience with post-cryopod fatigue and even with food in his stomach it wasn’t all that pleasant. He’d hate to think what Keith would feel like waking up post-cryopod with no food in his stomach and his body still healing from the being electrocuted.

He stays with Keith after he’s eaten and stays with him until he’s fallen asleep, both for his own reassurance and for Keith’s. Lance doesn’t know how long it’ll he’s okay, but if there’s one thing he’s learnt in the last hour, it’s that Keith will often say he’s fine when he’s not.

_“I-I need to be alone for a moment…”_

And yet when Lance offered him a hug, he was desperately needing one –  _wanting_  one, even.

_You’re not alone, Keith. I promise you, you’re not alone._

He only hopes that he knows.

 

(Keith doesn’t.)


	4. Last Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Had no one come for Keith...)

The pressure is tight around his wrists again. He tries to push himself off the table but his ankles are secured as well.

Keith tries not to panic.  _Patience yields focus._

He has to get himself out of here. No one else will. Nobody’s going to risk putting themselves in danger to come and get him; the Blades abandoned him for a reason. It’s his own fault he’s here.

No matter how much he struggles, the cuffs don’t give. They’re not meant to. But Keith tries nonetheless because  _Haggar…_

The interrogation room doors open. Keith fixes his expression into a glare. Haggar doesn’t react. If the two druids floating behind her do, he can’t tell.

“You can give me the information I want to know willingly,” the witch says. “I will give you the opportunity now. Where are the Blade of Marmora centralised?”

Keith maintains his glare and says nothing. His heart hammers inside his chest.

“You have a dobash before the offer no longer stands. Where are the Blade of Marmora centralised?”

He focuses on his clenched fists in his peripheral, the purple glow of the bindings around his wrists. He concentrates on breathing, on the pain of clenching his jaw.

Haggar doesn’t bother with a countdown.

The electricity turns on. Keith screams.

It stops.

The witch raises an eyebrow, waits, then moves her hand up the console.

White fills his vision. His throat burns. His body convulses.

It vanishes.

“I don’t have patience,” Haggar mutters. “This is your last warning. You will have no choice the next time I ask you.”

Keith struggles for air. Somehow, through the pain, he grits out, “Knowledge or death.”

A snort. “How fitting.”

The world whites out again and Keith almost blacks out, but Haggar stops the electricity before it can happen. He wishes she hadn’t. The nausea is horrible and he has to stay awake for it now.

A mechanical whirring sounds behind him and he’s being tilted backwards. He wants to be sick. The table comes to rest at a thirty-degree angle, at which time the druids position themselves on either side.

Keith’s shaking now, hard – from electrocution and from fear. His whole mouth feels numb and he realises he couldn’t speak even if he wanted. He literally has no choice anymore. They’re going to take what they want from him by force.

Right here, right now.

The druids raise their hands over him. A dark whirl of energy materialises in their palms and spreads out between the two of them in a web of magic. They murmur something and it flares a bright pink.

“Proceed,” Haggar says.

As the witch comes over to join them, the druids lower the spell. It burns. Then Haggar raises her hands and closes her eyes and Keith knows it’s over.

Knowledge or death. It’s not his choice.

Pain flares his in his head. He can’t see anything. The witch’s magic breaks down every single one of his mental fortifications. He hears her ask something and Keith’s stomach drops. His mind goes to answer it unwillingly.

_“Keith.”_

_No no no, get out of my head!_

The memory of whose voice it is threatens to surface. Keith throws all his consciousness against it, tries to force it back down.

_“Keith!”_

He knows that voice… he wants to go towards it…

_No! If I think about it, Haggar will know about it. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!_

“…just a dream.”

_No, go away. She can’t know!_

“Keith – ”

_Go away!_

“KEITH!”

He lurches upright. It’s dark, he can’t breathe, there’s  _other people in the room –_

The light comes on and a hand waves in from of him. He blinks. It’s Lance’s hand. Keith chokes on a gasp and looks around.

Pidge is standing by the light switch. Matt appears in the doorway with Shiro. Hunk’s standing on the other side of Lance, eyes wide in… horror?

A hand on his sweat-drenched back. “It’s okay, Keith. It was just a dream. A really, really bad dream.”

Keith’s eyes flick to Lance. He stares at him, unable to process what that means. This can’t be real. That can’t have been a nightmare. Haggar’s just using his hopes to get to him, to extract what information she wants from him easier.

But then Lance hugs him, and his thought processes stall.

He can see the concern in everyone’s eyes. Shiro has bags under his eyes and Matt’s wearing clothing he shouldn’t remember so much detail if he only saw it yesterday. He can also see every strand of Lance’s hair and his shadow falling across the wall behind him.

There’s more footsteps coming into the room – Sam’s. Keith can hear the Holts and Shiro talking in low tones to each other. Lance’s breathing. The rustling of clothes as Keith lets himself be pulled closer into the hug.

The feel of the blanket he’s clutching tightly, the warmth of someone with their arms around him and the steady hand rubbing up and down his back.

The smell of hair products and a recently washed jacket.

The taste of iron in his mouth from a bleeding lip.

_This is real._

Keith has to hide his face in Lance’s jacket before he breaks down crying.

 

 


End file.
